


cold open

by inkspl0tches



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, revival bullshit!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 12:16:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3609777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkspl0tches/pseuds/inkspl0tches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>it was always going to be us // revival fluff</p>
            </blockquote>





	cold open

**Author's Note:**

> this is stupid and silly and the x-files is coming back so i don't care. i borrowed the palm-to-palm comparison from a tumblr post, but i can't remember who made it!

the phone goes off shrilly before her alarm does. she knows because she’s already awake, has been for fifteen minutes, lying on her back considering the constellations in their ceiling and whether or not she has it in her to braid her hair this morning.

he’s awake too, he always is even though she tells him he doesn’t have to get up with her. he smiles when she says this, like he’s confused as to why he wouldn’t. thirteen years later and he’s still getting her coffee in the morning.

they’re both awake, but they’re pretending they’re not. she’d brushed her fingers over his wrist when she’d opened her eyes and he’d stirred, turning his hand over so she could press her palm to his. your hand is so small, he’d said once when they’d been face to face on his couch, palms pressed together tarzan style. she may have also been a little bit drunk. liquor was better, back then, it went down faster. it had a burn more dangerous than beer. now she mostly drinks red wine and falls asleep with her head in his lap. they are mostly like domesticated cats, languid and sleepy and affectionate. well trained. occasionally, he runs wild. occasionally.

she draws her hand up his arm, intending to brush hair out of her face (shorter, not like before) but he catches her fingers midair. the band on her ring finger sparks in the soft blue morning light.

they are not married, not that he hadn’t asked because he had, but he hadn't meant it. she'd laughed at him, he'd looked silly down on one knee. she'd kissed his cheek and told him to start dinner. the ring was a gift (their anniversaries were sketchy, not set in stone; they never knew what “first” to celebrate), a simple gold band. it was thin and hardly noticeable around her finger. she wore it like she wore the cross around her neck: a symbol of faith.

so they’re both awake and they’re only half pretending not to be and he turns towards her to say something, probably something stupid. nothing good came to his mind at five fifteen. and then phone rings.

she starts, squeezes his hand by accident and he huffs a laugh, kisses her wrist. still, no one calls them. her mother calls twice a month, monica occasionally calls from new orleans and skinner hasn’t called since last winter. she’d considered disconnecting their landline.

“i got it,” he says, rolls away from her to pick it up.

“yeah?” he says into the receiver, flicking on the lamp. he doesn’t introduce himself any more. a free man with a fugitive's habits. he sits on the side of the bed and she curls closer, props herself up on an elbow.

“you what?” he’s squinting, shaking his head. she’s mouthing: who is it? and he’s ignoring her, covers her hand with hers instinctively. he’s shaking. william, she thinks without warning. oh, god, what if my baby - 

he’s saying other things. a million other things and she’s lying next to him with her heart in her throat and fear clawing at her chest like any number of cryptids they’d encountered.

then he’s smiling, oh, he’s looking at her and smiling. she frowns back, raises an eyebrow.

“of course she’s here,” he’s saying, still smiling at her. “no, you didn’t wake us up.”

“well, we’ll have to discuss it. yes, sir. i’ll call you later.” he hangs up. smiles, shakes his head.

“mulder?”

he's standing up, stretching. a wednesday morning. he's pointedly ignoring her. 

“who was that?” she’s asking, jumping up after him as he wanders downstairs to start the coffee. “mulder, what the hell was that?”

she almost runs into him in the kitchen. it's unsurprising, a mulder sized wall having erected itself in the middle of her tiles. she throws her hands up to save herself from bouncing of his chest and he catches her wrists.

“that was skinner,” he says, smiling down at her.

“oh?”

that could mean a hundred things. a thousand. she swallows hard.

“yep,” he says and doesn’t continue.

“for fuck’s sake! what did he say?” she bounces the heel of her hand off his chest, resists the urge to stomp her foot.

“the x-files, scully,” he starts and then he’s off and running, a starting revolver having gone off somewhere she didn’t hear. he’s telling her a thousand things. using words like “reopened” and  “jobs back” and “old times” and “amazing.” he says amazing too many times. it doesn’t sound like a word.

by the end of it she’s sitting at their kitchen table, late for work, head in hands and coffee untouched. she's exhausted, ready to crawl back into bed and see him in a week. 

“i don’t know,” she says. she’s said that too many times, too.

“i’m not going back without you,” he tells her, crouches in front of her. she looks at him, hand on his cheek and god, he wants to. he wants to go back so badly. her ring catches the light again. she thinks: you promised. it sounds like an accusation, but she’s not sure who it's for.

it was always going to be us, he’d said when he’d given it to her. or maybe afterwards.

“let me think about it,” she tells him, because it’s the best she can do. he nods, squeezes her thigh and stands up. he looks, for a moment, glancing out the window, like one does when they’ve walked into a room and forgotten why they came in in the first place. her heart throbs once, painfully, in her chest.

he turns to leave the kitchen and that will be the end of it. she’s been through too much, seen too much, for him. he loves her and he owes her everything and she’s bled for him, killed for him, and he will not ask her twice. he will not bring it up again. 

“agent mulder,” she says from the table, surprises herself, stops him in his tracks. “you had quite the reputation at the fbi, if i remember correctly.”

she gets up and stands next to him, hand on his arm. 

"oh, yeah?"  he hooks his arm around her waist, pulls her in front of him. “well, if i remember correctly, so did you.”

he looks down at her questioningly, a tremulous smile on the edge of his lips. what are you doing, he's asking. if she knew she'd tell him.

“agent mulder," she starts, words twenty-something sweet. "i’m agent dana scully.” she rocks up onto her tiptoes to finish her words near his lips: “i believe i’ve been assigned to work with you.” 

he kisses her, arms around her waist, and she remembers dust and basement offices, flashlights beams and empty roads.

it was always going to be us, she thinks. it was always going to be us against the world.

//


End file.
